“I must go back. I came out here for old times’ sake, and I’m glad I saw you here first. I knew you were in Denbeigh.”
“How did you know?”
“Joe wrote me. He told me what you were doing—the hard work, and all about it. I wrote to him first—I wanted him to know that my going away to do the pictures made no difference, that I still felt bound to him, and that I was ready to marry him at any time.”
Her contact with the world had not, then, changed her feeling about Joe, as he had hoped it might. They turned toward town and she walked beside him, with her free stride, her shoulders erect, her head high.
“We have never mentioned you—Joe and I—not even when we came here. I came because you have lived here; I look up at these hills of yours every morning and feel that I am among friends. And they have helped me. It is because of you that I am here, Jean. I couldn’t do what I am doing here if it were not for you.”
“Please—you mustn’t say that!”
He bent his head stubbornly; but he knew that he must respect the line she had drawn between them.
“You didn’t go to Mr. Walsh? I thought you had made up your mind to do that.”
“I changed it; the evil got into me again. I was not ready. I haven’t got the devil out of my system, but the load’s a little lighter. I can get face to face with myself now occasionally—and that’s something I hadn’t done before. The face has changed a little,” he laughed. “I hardly know myself outwardly.”
His dress was that of the poorest labourer; he was coatless and carried his cheap cap in his hand.